Many Australians have had a painful bluebottle sting, yet little is known about bluebottles and what brings them to the coast.
BluebottleWatch is an innovative project between universities and Surf Lifesaving Australia, that will shed new light on bluebottle dynamics, pathways, and distribution of bluebottle beachings.
Bluebottles predominantly reach Australian coasts during summer months, in either isolated or mass events. Surveys of their abundance, size, and shape distribution give first insights into their population dynamics.
Observational records show high inter-annual and daily variability in bluebottle beachings and stings, which we relate to wind and ocean current patterns at various spatial scales. Interestingly, different wind directions bring different types of bluebottles, the so-called left- or right-handed, which have tentacles dragging on opposite sides of the float. Preliminary particle tracking experiments shed light into the origin of the bluebottles, and how the left and right-handed populations diverge before reaching our coastline.
Forewarned is forearmed; Ultimately, we want to understand when and where to expect bluebottle encounters.